Whole Grain Blueberry Pecan Muffins with Ricotta Filling (Gluten-Free)

Here's the gluten-free muffins as promised - tender, moist, and flavorful. I am now a firm believer that gluten-free baking can work without gimmicks or difficult tricks, and be super tasty.

I relied on Gluten-Free Girl again to understand how to use the variety of gluten-free flours and starches that I've got in my cupboard. She's made gluten-free baking work without xanthan gum, or any other gum to provide binding in the baked goods, which is good news both for those who might be digestively sensitive to the gums or who would have a hard time finding them in the grocery stores.

Now that I've tried these, I fully believe what GFG says - gluten-free baking can produce lighter, better texture than gluten baking, because gluten can bind things up and weigh them down. That's why some recipes tell you not to over mix the batter - because the mixing action will create too much gluten and make a dense product.

You have a choice about the flours and starches you use in these muffins; GFG suggests keeping a supply of your own whole grain flour mix around, and provides a ratio of flour to starch (70/30) that you can use to create your own (I recommend reading her post linked above, it's much more thorough).

It is important to note that your baked goods will taste like the flours you choose; I was super curious about teff flour, so I mixed it with sweet sorghum and amaranth flours, with white rice flour as the starch and a few whole oats thrown in for texture. Teff turns out to have a fairly strong flavor (reminded me of a powdery buckwheat), so I would reduce the amount I would use of teff next time in proportion to the other flours, and probably choose another flour that does not have such a fine texture as the ones I chose. That being said, I still devoured four muffins as soon as they came out of the oven. Plus another one later - so, yeah, they turned out okay.

To make your own gluten-free flour mix, take 70% whole grain flours and mix with 30% starches.

Whole Grain Flours:

Almond
Amaranth
Brown Rice
Buckwheat
Corn
Millet
Oat
Quinoa
Sorghum
Sweet Brown Rice
Teff

Starches:

Arrowroot
Cornstarch
Potato Starch
Tapioca Flour
White Rice Flour

I also integrated a little advice from the Barefoot Contessa (incidentally, she is someone who I imagine never actually goes barefoot) who suggests greasing the tops of your muffin pans as well as the inside of the cups, to help you remove the muffins when they've cooled:

And I decided to make a ricotta filling for the muffins to use up some ricotta in the fridge, so I used the technique and amounts at this smittenkitchen recipe.

You can add any combination of nuts, dried or fresh fruits, or spices that you like - I went with frozen blueberries and pecans. The flavor of a lot of these flours is nutty, so the pecans were a good complement, and added nice texture.

It's possible to make the whole thing dairy-free too; just replace the buttermilk with almond or soy milk that you've curdled with 1 T apple cider vinegar, and eliminate the ricotta filling. GFG says that you can make them without eggs, but you'll have to see her instructions to see how to accomplish that.

Whole Grain Blueberry Pecan Muffins with Ricotta Filling

Gluten-Free

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan or two (with filling, my batter made 17 muffins).

In a mixing bowl, whisk together to combine and aerate:

350 g whole-grain flour mix

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

180 g brown sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

2 eggs

1 1/4 C buttermilk*

1/3 C grapeseed oil

Use a rubber spatula to mix the wet ingredients into the dry. When they are almost fully combined, throw in any additions to you want (about a handful of chopped nuts and a handful of fruit will do; firm fruits may take longer to bake soft). Stir until all traces of flour are gone.

If you want the ricotta filling, combine:

1/2 C ricotta cheese (fat-free is fine)

6 T Greek yogurt or sour cream

pinch salt

Fill each muffin well 1/3 full with batter, plop 1 T of ricotta filling on the batter, then cover with more batter until the well is 3/4 full. The muffins will rise, but not like crazy, so you don't have to worry if the wells are close to full.

Bake about 25-35 minutes, until muffins are browned, the tops spring back to touch, and a knife comes out clean.

*Buttermilk may always be replaced by regular or soy/almond milk that has been curdled with apple cider vinegar. The proportion is 1 T vinegar to 1 C milk; just dump the vinegar in the milk before you set up the rest of your ingredients and pans, and it will be ready when you need it.

*** I'd like to note that the best whole grain combination I've come up with so far was a mix of cornmeal and almond meal for the whole grain flours, and corn starch for the starch. Great texture and taste!

Plum Tart with Walnut Cream

On this 14th of July, I would like to bring you something from one of my favorite French food blogs. This recipe caught my eye a couple of years ago; I'm not sure why I remembered it this week as I looked for plum recipes - perhaps it was the lovely word "quetsches" for the French plums in the original recipe, or the unique idea of nut cream with plums, or the cute plumpness of the plums in the photo, but regardless, I am glad that it came to mind!

I love eating fresh plums, as I do the many incredible summer fruits available in Israel, but party leftovers left me with enough plums to make my tongue fall out from acidity were I to eat them all myself. So...tart making time!

In my opinion, the walnut cream is the star player in this tart, although it sort of melds with the crust so that eaters may not be aware of its individual contribution. More importantly, the combination of the butter crust with the sweet walnut cream and the tart/sweet juicy plums was magical. As with most fruit desserts, I think this one would be great with other fruits and nuts, so that could be a future project...if I didn't have so many others in mind...

Plum Tart with Walnut Cream

Tarte aux Quetsches et Crème de Noix from Chocolate and Zucchini

For the crust:
- 75 grams (1/3 C plus 1 T) sugar (unrefined or white)
- 150 grams (1 C plus 2 T) flour
- 75 grams butter (salted, or unsalted plus a pinch of salt) -- if you use regular American butter (which has less butterfat than European butter), use 7 tablespoons
- Ice-cold water or milk

For the filling:
- 135 grams (1 1/4 C) shelled walnut halves
- 2 T sugar (white, unrefined, or even honey)
- 1 egg
- 3 T crème fraîche (substitute sour cream or fromage blanc)
- Optional flavoring: 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, or 1 teaspoon plum or walnut liqueur, or 1 teaspoon light rum
- 700 grams (1 1/2 lbs) ripe plums of any variety

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 10-inch tart pan with butter and set aside.

Prepare the pâte sablée. In the bowl of a mixer or blender, combine the sugar and flour. Add the butter and process in short pulses until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (Alternatively, rub the butter into the dry ingredients by hand with the tips of your fingers or a wire pastry blender.) Add a tablespoon of water or milk and mix again, in short pulses, until it is absorbed. The dough should still be crumbly, but it should clump if you gently squeeze a handful in your hand. If it doesn't, add a little more water -- teaspoon by teaspoon -- and give the dough a few more pulses until it reaches the desired consistency. My crust went funny on me - I may have used the wrong amount/kind of butter, or pulsed the mixture too long - but it still tasted great.

Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared tart pan. Using the heels of your hands and your fingers, press on the dough gently to form a thin layer, covering the surface of the pan and creating a rim all around. Don't worry if the dough feels a little dry, this is normal. (You can prepare the dough up to a day ahead: cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.) Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

While the crust par-bakes, prepare the filling. Combine the walnuts and sugar in the bowl of your food processor, and grind to a coarse powder. Add the egg, crème fraîche, and flavoring if using, and mix again. (You can prepare the walnut cream up to a day ahead: transfer to an airtight container, refrigerate, and bring to room temperature before using.) Rinse and dry the plums, cut them in halves, and discard the stones.

Remove the pan from the oven (leave the heat on), and let cool slightly. Spread walnut cream evenly over the tart shell, and arrange the plums on top in a circular pattern starting from the outside. Return to the oven for 30 minutes, until the plums are cooked through and the walnut cream is set. Transfer to a rack to cool completely before serving. The tart is best served on the day it is made, but the leftovers will keep until the next day; cover with foil, refrigerate, and bring to room temperature before eating.

I ate mine with a little leftover fromage blanc (why not?), but it is great all by its lonesome. Happy Bastille Day!

Four Chocolates and a Nut Chews

I wasn't going to post this recipe, since I didn't get any photos of the final product and thought they were too cloyingly sweet to share, but popular demand has spoken! They surely did get eaten, both by myself and others, so I guess I should not have feared that they were overly sweet. Not sure if I should call these candies, or cookies, or bars, but regardless, they represent some chocolaty nutty chewiness!

This whole recipe is a perversion of David Lebovitz's Triple Chocolate Scotcheroo recipe, the changes driven by what is easily available to me in Israel. It's just a mess of sweet, good things stuck together, so feel free to improvise when it comes to the ingredients! That's what I did, after all. If you keep the same basic process (sugar syrup - nut spread - cereal - melted chocolates), it should work. You can skip the caramelized white chocolate step if you don't have time, and you can replace it with melted white chocolate or butterscotch chips.


Four Chocolates and a Nut Chews

1 C (200 g) sugar
1/2 C (320 g) honey
1/2 C (130 g) finely chopped pecans
1 1/2 C (130 g) Nutella, or a similar chocolate paste (I used the Israeli spread pictured above)
6 C (200 g) crisp chocolate-flavored cereal
1 bag (10-12 oz.) chocolate chips
1 C whole pecans
1 bag (10-12 oz.) white chocolate chips

optional (but highly recommended to balance the sweetness!): fleur de sel or flaky sea salt

1. Caramelize the white chocolate chips according to these instructions; in Israel, the white chocolate took about an hour longer than usual to caramelize, so I'm guessing the content of the chips is different, but it's done when it has a nice caramelized color.

2. Butter or spray a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.

3. In a large saucepan (at least 6 qts) over medium heat, bring the sugar and honey to a full boil. Remove from heat and stir in chopped pecans and Nutella/chocolate spread, then mix the rice cereal in until completely coated. Press the mixture into the greased pan, making sure the top is smooth. If you use cereal that's in larger bits, this may just end up clumpy, which is fine (mine was VERY clumpy).

4. Melt the chocolate chips in a clean, dry bowl set over a double boiler or microwave, stirring gently until smooth and well-blended. Spread/drizzle over the cereal mixture, and sprinkle lightly with salt (if using). When the white chocolate is done caramelizing, drizzle it over the whole mess and place the whole pecans on top of the white chocolate, adding more salt if desired. Cool until set.

Serving: Once cool, cut into small sections with a sharp knife. These are very sweet and strong on the chocolate, so bite-sized portions are a good idea (The whole pecans and salt are intended to balance the sweetness. The honey may be reduced to made this less sweet).

Mendiant Bark

Need a little last-minute holiday treat? Try this traditional French Christmas sweet that takes very little effort and time. Normally a mendiant is made as 1 1/2 inch disks of chocolate with a nut or two and a piece of dried fruit or two on top (also an easy option), but I made it into a big bar of chocolate that I broke into pieces after it hardened.

You can make this with dark chocolate, white chocolate, or any other kind of chocolate you can think of, and you can top it with any combination of dried fruits and nuts that you like. Here's my favorite version:

Mendiant Bark
12 oz. white chocolate (chips or a bar that you can cut up)
handful of dried cranberries
handful of dried apricots, diced small
a few pieces of crystalized ginger, diced small
handful of toasted sliced almonds
handful of toasted pecan bits
handful of pistachio meats

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave (no more than 30 seconds at a time, with good stirs in between) and pour out onto a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Spread as thin as you like, and proceed to sprinkle the fruits and nuts randomly and thickly over the chocolate. Crowd the toppings together and cover all open areas of chocolate so that every bite is sure to get some goodies. Make sure that all the fruits and nuts are pressed into the chocolate so that they do not fall off when you break the bark into individual pieces. Once the chocolate has hardened, use a large chef knife to break it into random-shaped pieces, or break it with your hands.